Posted
by
Zonkon Friday November 02, 2007 @11:15AM
from the always-liked-danger-mouse-and-duckula-better dept.

Identity Missing writes "An Ohio laboratory has produced genetically modified mice which 'can run five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill, for up to six hours before stopping,' as well as a number of other remarkable feats. An enzyme called phosphoenolypyruvate carboxykinases (PEPCK-C) is apparently responsible, and we should hope that the scientists are correct in saying that athletes won't be modifying their genes any time soon to get it, because it apparently makes the mice more aggressive. If anyone feels a super villain coming on, at least we can rely on these Mighty Mice. A video demonstrates just how much these little guys beat the competition."

Well, just in case the mice go off the deep end, we're developing mighty cats. And in the event that they get out of cotrol we have the mighty dogs. And we have gigantic stuffed dolls and sticks to distract the dogs long enough to get the whaling harpoons trained on them.

It's only about a one-hour walk or half-hour jog. Everybody over 12 and under 60 should be *really* concerned if they don't manage to do it.
If you're talking about scaling this up according to size/weight differences, it becomes a whole different deal. Estimating a mouse's length at about 15 cm and a person's at 2 meters, one had to make some 84 kilometers at 14 km/h. For comparison: A marathon is some 42 kilometers and done (world record) in two hours and a few minutes. I don't know too much about human s

My suspicion is that they wouldn't do well in the wild. Aggression and strength in the natural world have to be balanced with food requirements, which is basically why not every living thing is super-strong, super-fast, and super-tough. Dire wolves are gone for a reason... These mice "eat twice as much and weigh half as much," which sounds great to people living in the modern industrialized world, but is a pretty serious liability for a wild animal.

Also, they may be amazingly tough for mice, but you know, they're still mice. No matter how big and strong they may be, there are still plenty of critters bigger and stronger than they. If their aggression translates into a lack of caution around predators, then they'd essentially be nothing but a nice lean snack for health-conscious cats.;)

A mouse like this will face a penalty for its increased speed. For a start, they will require more food (a scarce enough resource for any wild mouse) and since PEPCK is involved in gluconeogenesis (the manufacture of glucose from precursors such as protein and lipids) they will likely have a harder time laying down the fat needed to survuive the colder months.

Also, since these are albino mice they will likely face increased threat from predation (like most other albino animals) and thus face a signific

According to TFA, and a comment above mine, they still reproduce at 3 years, which is the equivalent of 80 human years. This makes the most sense, to me, if the aging process is mainly driven by the breakdown of mitochondria as animals age. This also fits with the calorie restriction data available. What I would love to know is: what is the mitochondria count in their non-muscle cells, can the process be tweaked to produce different mitochondria levels so that we can test for senescence as a function of age

I have a mighty mouse, yet it can't "run five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill", feel aggression, or do "a number of other remarkable feats". All it does is sit in my hand and make clicking noises when I try to pet it. It runs a lot longer than "six hours", but it doesn't seem to do anything else. It doesn't seem to have any eyes or a tail either. I think it might be defective... maybe I should return it to Apple.

Steroids make you more agressive too and athletes haven't had any qualms about taking them, so I don't see that as a problem. The killer is of course you'd have to modify the dna before conception, which is kinda hard for a current athlete (unless they've invented a star trek DNA resequencer when I wasn't looking).

The solder thing? You can bet 100% that this kind of thing is going on *already*. Where do you think the money comes for funding this kind of stuff.

Yeah...
Let's not discuss a certain Australian female athlete taking a husband from the Ethiopian long distance running team for purposes of selective breeding a few years back. Let's not discuss the actual genealogy and breeding of this one: http://www.musclemayhem.com/front/content/view/238/120/ [musclemayhem.com]
Though it looks like her mom and pop have supplemented that with the "traditional remedies" AKA steroids as well. And so on...

But what happens when the Red Skull comes looking for our super solider formula? Will We wind-up taking the only survivor of the program out with a sniper when he goes against government wishes to comply with registration too...

I've always wondered what would be possible if humans were regularly experimented on in the same fashion. Of course it's unethical, but I bet we'd have humans that can live 300 years and run 10,000 miles at a clip if we cut out the middle man;)

Why is it unethical? If you could save thousands of lives by curing a disease, but curing the disease required potentially deadly experiments on a few people, wouldn't it be unethical NOT to proceed with the research?

Why is it unethical? If you could save thousands of lives by curing a disease, but curing the disease required potentially deadly experiments on a few people, wouldn't it be unethical NOT to proceed with the research?

Apparently many researchers who do muscle augmentation research have to turn down eager calls from athletes and their coaches who want to be human test subjects, looking for any way to boost their abilities.

It has been done. Here [wikipedia.org] and here [remember.org] are good places to start. You may even look up Bayer warcrimes while you are at it. We don't have humans that can live 300 years and run 10,000 miles at a clip... Wonder no more at the possibilities...

If you want to prevent an officer from having the power to tazer innocent people why not... oh I don't know... vote for Ron Paul?:)

So that instead of being tasered by someone who at least theoretically answers to the people, you can be tasered by someone who answers only to his police corporation's board of directors. Excellent! That's some real progress there!

I see little reason to think that we'll see any social arguments about this genetic modification that we don't already see about a) steroids, hormones, and precursors or b) genetic modifications in general.

Originally genetic modification was just things like making mice glow. Now they're creating results that would be appealing to exactly the wrong people: the military.

As soon as a science has military application it gets billions poured into it. Even if there are beneficial offshoots to the research that follows the repercussions are usually awful. Think atom bombs and biological weapons.

It is not unreasonable at this point to wonder where we're going to end up as a species. If we can genetically create human beings with abilities that far outpace anything an unmodified can do will that become the norm?

In my lifetime (40 years) genetic modification has gone from theory to fact. I am worried that it will be horribly abused.

As soon as a science has military application it gets billions poured into it. Even if there are beneficial offshoots to the research that follows the repercussions are usually awful. Think atom bombs and biological weapons.

You have a twisted view of the world, my friend.

I think a far more rational way of interpreting what happens is that the offshoots are awful (atom bombs, biological weapons), while the repercussions are beneficial (infectious disease research, nuclear power). Far more people are living longer, and better lives because of military-driven advancements in science, then the number of people that have been harmed or killed by the inventions that follow.

While atomic bombs and biological weapons are 'terrible', in terms of overall damage and pain/suffering they don't compare to conventional explosives (which no calls inhumane). And in terms of nuclear technology, I imagine the nuclear research was easily worth the terrible cost in lives (an invasion of japan/extended war would likely have had many more casualties and affected lives) and will eventually touch more lives in a positive fashion (if it hasn't already) through the gains to society. Biological wea

All the military applications of this would be a short term advantage, one or two generations, before it is too wide spread to be an issue. After that it is the government that should fear its people. Modifying people for military applications is a sure way to topple a government.Anyone watching 4400? Creating new sub-cultures with the power to do things others can't, isn't a good method for bringing people together. It is a receipt for ripping societies apart.

lol - 'microbomb'... what's that for, blowing up evil nanobots? A better use for attack mice would be to infect them with a viral or bacterial agent to which they are immune but humans are not and have them run bite the ankles of the bad guys. Note: Be careful handling them during their pre-mission briefing.

No the supervillains are the guys that got treated in the secret human program run last year, which proved to make them psychotic too. Now they are running extra mouse trials so they can make it public as a CYA.

we should hope that the scientists are correct in saying that athletes won't be modifying their genes any time soon to get it, because it apparently makes the mice more aggressive.

Is it just me being paranoid or does anyone else see the obvious application of an ultra-resistant hyper-aggressive human? Isn't a soldier capable of running for hours without stopping while killing everyone on his/her path without doubt or remorse one of those weapons that make generals and politicians dream wet dreams of a w

that's what makes them possibleall the experiments are doing is letting loose the maximum potential of the mouse. mother nature, evolution, purposefully attenuates this potential for an obvious reason: this mouse outruns, outlives, outreproduces... and OUTEATS normal mice

put this supermouse in the wild, and it will be quickly dead. because real mice face an enormous food resource pressure. and so it pays in the wild to need very little food, even when this reduces your overall capacity in other avenues of y

"An Ohio laboratory has produced genetically modified mice which 'can run five to six kilometres at a speed of 20 meters per minute on a treadmill, for up to six hours before stopping,' as well as a number of other remarkable feats.

But Professor Hanson played this down. "Right now, this is impossible to do - putting a gene into muscle. It's unethical.

I'm tired of people claiming that it's "unethical" to enhance one's body--or destroy it for that matter. What substances I ingest or what modifications I make to my body is my own business. Even genetic modifications to one's own children aren't automatically "unethical".

To put that into some perspective humans walk at around 3mph. and sprint for short distances at 20 Mph.
A 4 Minute mile is 15 Mph, this is considered very good for a runner.

The Marathon world record time running a 42.195 kilometers distance is 2 hours 4 minutes and 26 seconds, set in the Berlin Marathon by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia on September 30, 2007.
This required an average speed of 13 Miles per hour for 2 hours. Just amazing really.

So to compare this with mice a humans peak is 15Mph (4 minute Mile) so 30% of peak is is 4.5 Mph.

This accomplishment for mice is roughly equal to humans running at 4.5 Mph for 6 hours. for 27 miles or 43.452 kilometers just over a marathon distance. 6 Hour times are well below average and would be the slow runners in a marathon.